Transcription

1 Top 5 best practices for creating effective dashboards and the 7 mistakes you don t want to make

2 p2 Financial services professionals are buried in data that measure and track: relationships and processes, decline and growth rates, revenue and profit. Unfortunately, because there is so much data, using it to better manage business is often overwhelming and cumbersome. You ve been there: no matter how many reports, formal meetings, casual conversations, or ed memos, someone important inevitably claims they didn t know about some important fact or insight and says we should have a dashboard to monitor the performance of X. Or maybe you ve been here: you ve said yes, let s have a dashboard. It will help us improve ROI (return on investment) if everyone can see how X is performing and be able to quickly respond. I ll update it weekly. Unfortunately, by week 3, you realize you re killing several hours a week integrating data from multiple sources to update a dashboard you re not sure anyone is actually using. Leveraging that definition, we can define an effective dashboard as one that enables users to visually display relevant and current tasks and projects, account performance, management costs and any other critical information that effects or is needed to achieve business objectives (such as improve ROI, achieve customer service goals, and deliver revenue). It is optimized to speed the evaluation of and reaction to current trends and statistics and to make the information and results accessible to colleagues and clients. Core to both definitions are these characteristics: objectives-focused, visual, relevant, current, and accessible to its audience. So, start your planning by considering the following 5 best practices in creating and deploying effective dashboards. And, just as important, keep an eye on the 7 critical mistakes you don t want to make. 1 Choose metrics based on why they matter Yet, dashboards have been all the rage and with good reason. They help you and your coworkers achieve a better grasp on the data one of your most important, and often overlooked tools. You ve read how they help organizations get on the same page, speed decisionmaking and improve ROI. They help create organizational alignment because everyone is looking at the same thing. So dashboards are effective. They work. The questions are: how can they work for you? And how can you get started? What is a dashboard? First, let s define what a dashboard is. In his 2006 book, Information Dashboard Design, Stephen Few wrote: A dashboard is a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance. Choosing what metrics to include in the dashboard is critical. Above all, they must be metrics that matter and that are relevant to the job at hand. But that doesn t mean every metric should be included far from it. You should be highly selective in determining which metrics earn a spot on your dashboard. In order to find the right set of metrics to include, you need to consider the following: What are your organization s core objectives? How do your efforts contribute to those objectives? Do you have data, either internal or external, that can shed light on the objectives? Can you design a meaningful metric that measures those contributions? Is this metric truly necessary to explain your contribution to the objectives? Can you build a systematic and on-going means of measurement?

3 p3 Start with a clear understanding of executive objectives and how you contribute. If your organization is in growth mode and new customers are key, then measure your new customer acquisition rates. If you re operating in a highly competitive market, then incorporate third party market share metrics. You likely have other specific metrics that are leading indicators of overall corporate goals; these are important to include only if the relationship of those metrics to the corporate goal is clear. So, for example, if your colleagues understand that the number of daily transactions is a leading indicator of growth, include it in your dashboard. Be sure you can clearly explain how every metric on your dashboard connects to organization objectives. Instead of your dashboard users pondering how to read and interpret your views, he or she can actually focus on what the views in your dashboard are telling him or her. A well-designed, highly visual dashboard will be more widely adopted by your audiences. And, because you ve carefully selected your metrics to map to corporate objectives, visualization will be not only useful in speeding people s understanding but also potentially help cross inevitable chasms between departments. Colleagues will literally see the direct translation of the individual department objectives into the broader companywide business objectives. Things you should embrace when designing a dashboard include the use of colors, shapes, lines, thicknesses, degrees of shading, and any other tools that leverage visual perception. Things to avoid include overly cute widgets, 3D graphic treatments, and graph types not commonly seen. Why are visualizations such as bar graphs, line graphs, heatmaps and scatterplots so popular? They are clear and everyone knows how to read them. So while it s tempting to show off your PowerPoint charting skills, adding as many shapes and colors as possible until absolutely nothing is easy to understand resist. Figure 1: Dashboard metrics You should be highly selective in determining which metrics earn a spot on your dashboard. Operations Dashboard 2 Keep it visual Dashboards are meant to be fast and easy to read. Report and text-based tables are not fast or easy to read. This is a case where a picture really is worth a thousand words. Because the human brain processes a single number, a visualization or a picture as single chunks of information, a report or data table filled with numbers requires the brain to store and remember multiple chunks while visualizations or pictures require single chunks. So the process of comprehension and insight is dramatically faster with visualization. Figure 2: Unclear visualizations Stay away from overly cute widgets and hard-toread graphs.

4 p4 The easier and more intuitive you make the process of customization, the more likely they will be to use your dashboards.

5 p5 3 Make it interactive Your dashboard will put everyone who sees it on the same page. But once on the same page, viewers each will have their own questions and areas where they want to know more. Your dashboard needs to allow viewers to customize it so that they get the information they need. Interactive, highly visual dashboards should enable your audiences to perform basic analytical tasks, such as filtering the views, drilling down, and examining underlying data all with little training. Viewers need to be able to literally get the big picture from the dashboard that everyone sees and then be able to drill down into a view that tells them what they need to know to get their jobs done. Whether you accommodate this need by using automated software features or you produce multiple views designed for functions and roles, allowing people to gather data relevant to their situation is key. 4 Keep it current or don t bother Make sure that the data underlying your dashboard is current and that your selected metrics reflect current business challenges. Data can be from this quarter, this week, this hour whatever the right timeline is for your business. Data that is out-of-date is not necessarily worse than no data. But, out-of-date data does lend a false sense of confidence to decisions. You think you re making fact-based decisions but the data is no longer representative of or relevant to your current situation. That being said, be realistic: you don t necessarily need up-to-the-minute data. It s more than possible that a dashboard of last month s metrics is meaningful enough to help guide and inform this month s activities. And, sometimes seeing metrics change by hour is just noise. Almost as important as having current data is having the ability to change and update the metrics represented in your dashboard. You need to be current in terms of what you re measuring. This quarter, the number of new customers might matter most. But next quarter, as you get more sophisticated in your use of dashboards and the supporting data, the focus may be on customer satisfaction, most profitable products and growth this year compared to last. 5 Make it simple to access and use Making your dashboards easily accessible is critical. Web distribution is ideal especially if your dashboards can constantly pull current data and can adhere to IT protocols and security standards. Products that provide web-based sharing and collaboration of data analytics, dashboards and visualization, are available and are easy enough for even someone with limited technical abilities to support. If you can t publish to the web in a way that is easy to maintain and update, then consider alternatives like posting files on websites, Wiki s or blogs. Of course, with file-based distribution, you ll always have a data synchronization issue (i.e., people reading old versions) and the security of your data may be more cumbersome but at least you can develop good habits about the importance of dashboards and collaboration. Be realistic about your creation and distribution plan. Create a prototype, distribute it through your planned means and ask for feedback. Just like any other successful project, the key is to test, test, test. As you have more experience and learn what people are using, you can enhance the actual dashboard and your means of distribution.

6 p6 Summary Dashboards are powerful because they can help you use relevant, current information to understand clearly how you are performing with respect to the overall organization s goals as well as help to explain your contribution to interested colleagues. Essential to the success of a dashboarding project are: 1. Choose metrics based on why they matter 2. Keep it visual 3. Make it interactive 4. Keep it current or don t bother 5. Make it simple to access and use If you re already engaged in a dashboarding effort, take note of these five best practices and evaluate how your efforts measure up. If you re not, it s not only time to ask yourself why not, but can taking one on help give better visibility to your business objectives. 7 mistakes to avoid 1. Starting off with too much complexity. It s easy to get overly ambitious and want to provide highly detailed, real-time dashboards covering each and every business challenge that also allow users to customize in multiple dimensions. But instead of spending multiple weeks or even months working through your first iteration, you ll be better off working through several short cycles of prototype, test and adjust. 2. Using metrics no one understands. Your metrics are probably so familiar to you that even something as simple as conversion rate seems obvious in its definition. But the reality is, your dashboard needs to use metrics or concepts that your broader audience understands. 3. Cluttering the dashboard with unimportant graphics and unintelligible widgets. Keep your dashboard simple in its visual appeal. Resist the temptation to make your dashboard too flashy or over-designed, with gauge-like graphics and widgets. As pretty as those may seem, they get in the way with your dashboard s objective: rapidly and easily informing your audience. 4. Waiting for complex technology and big BI deployment projects. Sure, some of traditional Business Intelligence tools provide fancy capabilities that are nice to have. But implementations often take a much longer time than originally anticipated so waiting for a traditional BI project to materialize may mean months or years of delay. Fortunately, there are dashboard tools and strategies that can get you going now. 5. Underestimating the time or resources to create and maintain the dashboard. Because a dashboard is typically one page or one screen, it is easy to assume that it should be quick and simple to create and maintain. But in fact, a dashboarding project takes on-going resources to design, launch and maintain. 6. Failing to match metrics to the goal. Often, working dashboards showcase the activities of the a single department. Instead, your dashboard should connect your department s efforts to your organization s actual goals and objectives. 7. Using ineffective, poorly designed graphs and charts. Take care in how you design your graphs and charts. For example, 3D charts offers no increase in viewer comprehension. Garish colors can interfere with interpretation. Choosing a pie chart for more than 6 values makes the graphic virtually impossible to read. There are clear principles for designing good data visualizations; see our resource list for a guide.

7 p7 Resource list Books (Information Dashboard Design and Show Me the Numbers) and articles by Stephen Few Books and articles by Edward Tufte Marketing Dashboards: Visualizing Smarter Marketing Decisions research report by Jeff Zabin of the Aberdeen Group Telling Great Stories with Data whitepaper by Susan Moore along with Tableau Software Writings on good analytic design from Juice Analytics Writings on good presentation techniques from Presentation Zen Whitepapers, on-demand web seminars, articles and examples at the Tableau Software Learning Center About Tableau Tableau Software helps people see and understand data. Ranked by Gartner in 2011 as the world s fastest growing business intelligence company, Tableau helps individuals quickly and easily analyze, visualize and share information. With more than 6,500 customers worldwide of all sizes and across industries, Tableau is used by individuals throughout an organization, in an office and on-the-go. See the impact Tableau can have on your data by downloading the free trial at Copyright Tableau Software, Inc All rights reserved. 837 North 34th Street, Suite 400, Seattle, WA U.S.A.

top 5 best practices for creating effective campaign dashboards and the 7 mistakes you don t want to make You ve been there: no matter how many reports, formal meetings, casual conversations, or emailed

Visual Scoring the 360 View: 5 Steps for Getting Started with Easier, Faster and More Effective Lead Scoring Authors: Elissa Fink Wade Tibke Tableau Software p2 Lead Scoring For Most a Great Idea in Concept,

3 myths of email analytics and how they are impacting your results Date: 11/17/2008 The volume of insights you can gain by adding ad hoc analysis capabilities to your standard set of email reporting metrics

Go Beyond Excel to Analyze Data 5 Strategies For Improving Your Analytics p2 There s no doubt that Excel has been one of the tools of choice for analysis and reporting. Users love the control they have,

Whitepaper Building Effective Dashboards: Measuring for Success The Fast Lane to BI An increasing number of managers yearn for data to help them make major decisions in the organization, so a dashboard

ElegantJ BI White Paper Achieve a Complete Business Picture with a Business Intelligence (BI) Dashboard Integrated Business Intelligence and Reporting for Performance Management, Operational Business Intelligence

IBM Software White Paper Business Analytics Software Extending business intelligence with dashboards 2 Extending business intelligence with dashboards Overview Imagine being able to track the key performance

PLANNING YOUR DASHBOARD PROJECT Use of dashboards has allowed us to identify adverse trends quickly and implement corrective actions to address the problems. This has allowed us to improve efficiency within

Visualization Quick Guide A best practice guide to help you find the right visualization for your data WHAT IS DOMO? Domo is a new form of business intelligence (BI) unlike anything before an executive

Tableau Software EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Tableau s rapid-fire business intelligence software lets everyone in your organization analyze and understand their data far faster than any other solution and at a fraction

9 Principles of Killer Dashboards SELL. SERVICE. MARKET. SUCCEED. The information provided in this e-book is strictly for the convenience of our customers and is for general informational purposes only.

IBM Software White Paper Business Analytics Software Extending business intelligence with dashboards 2 Extending business intelligence with dashboards Overview Imagine being able to track the key performance

idashboards FOR SOLUTION PROVIDERS The idashboards team was very flexible, investing considerable time working with our technical staff to come up with the perfect solution for us. Scott W. Ream, President,

T he complete guide to SaaS metrics What are the must have metrics each SaaS company should measure? And how to calculate them? World s Simplest Analytics Tool INDEX Introduction 4-5 Acquisition Dashboard

The Secret Formula for Webinar Presentations that Work Every Time by Gihan Perera www.webinarsmarts.com Sponsored by In an online presentation, your slides aren t visual aids; they ARE the visuals. One

Keeping up with the KPIs 10 steps to help identify and monitor key performance indicators for your business KNOW YOUR KPI A key performance indicator (KPI) is a performance measure (metric) designed to

In-Memory or Live Data: Which Is Better? Author: Ellie Fields, Director Product Marketing, Tableau Software July 2011 p2 The short answer is: both. Companies today are using both to deal with ever-larger

Michelle Wallace, Product Marketing The Simple Data Strategy that Helped LinkedIn Boost Business- Services Revenue by 85% 2 Every day, millions of users log in to LinkedIn.com. From businesses to students

Agilysys rguest Analyze Solution Improve Performance and Customer Service TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction...3 What Will Be The Role 0f Analytics for Hospitality Businesses?...4 What s Involved in an Analytics

A Simple Guide to Churn Analysis A Publication by Evergage Introduction Thank you for downloading A Simple Guide to Churn Analysis. The goal of this guide is to make analyzing churn easy, meaning you wont

idashboards for Operations Management PROVIDING INSIGHT FOR OPERATIONAL SUCCESS idashboards helped Precoat move from manual data mining and paper reports to a system that allows us to identify best practices

ElegantJ BI White Paper The Value Proposition of Business Intelligence (BI) for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Integrated Business Intelligence and Reporting for Performance Management, Operational

ElegantJ BI Simple. Smart. Strategic. ElegantJ BI White Paper The Value Proposition of Business Intelligence (BI) for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Integrated Business Intelligence and Reporting for

Bu si n ess In tel l i gen ce: Leveragi ng D at a to B et ter Man age yo u r B u si n ess D r i ve r s We Work Where You Work A DEFINITION OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Business Intelligence is defined as a

How to Choose and Deploy a Transformative BI Solution: The Irish Life Story Author: Ellie Fields Senior Director, Product Marketing, Tableau Software November 2012 p2 With 31 billion Euro under management,

Maximising value through business insight Business Intelligence White Paper October 2015 CONTENTS Reports were tedious. Earlier it would take days for manual collation. Now all this is available at the

Five Tips for Presenting Data Analyses: Telling a Good Story with Data As a professional business or data analyst you have both the tools and the knowledge needed to analyze and understand data collected

How to Use Boards for Competitive Intelligence Boards are highly customized, interactive dashboards that ubervu via Hootsuite users can personalize to fit a specific task, job function or use case like

How to Choose and Deploy a Transformative BI Solution: The Irish Life Story Author: Ellie Fields Senior Director, Product Marketing, Tableau Software November 2012 p2 With 31 billion Euro under management,

Product Datasheet For TrulinX Users MITS Distributor Analytics A powerful combination of reporting features MITS Distributor Analytics gives you a competitive edge when it comes to making decisions that

Independently explore, visualize, model and share insights without IT assistance Highlights Explore, analyze, visualize and share your insights independently, without relying on IT for assistance. Work

Integrated business intelligence solutions for your organization In the business world, critical information influences individuals goals, affects how people work across teams and ultimately helps organizations

Business Intelligence: How better analytics can lead your business to higher profits. Introduction The economic downturn is forcing business leaders to rethink strategic plans. To remain competitive, businesses

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Maximising value through business insight Business Intelligence White Paper October 2015 CONTENTS Reports were tedious. Earlier it would take days for manual collation. Now all this

idashboards for Financial Services PROVIDING INSIGHT FOR OPERATIONAL SUCCESS We had a huge leap in account openings once staff could see how their sales compared to other staff and branches. They now have

The five questions you need to ask before selecting a Business Intelligence Vendor Overview Over the last decade, Business Intelligence (BI) has been at or near the top of the list of many executive and

Six Signs you are ready for BI WHITE PAPER LET S TAKE A LOOK AT THE WAY YOU MIGHT BE MONITORING AND MEASURING YOUR COMPANY About the auther You re managing information from a number of different data sources.

The Business Value of Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010 Executive Summary SharePoint 2010 is The Business Collaboration Platform for the Enterprise & the Web that enables you to connect & empower

5 Best Practices for Telling Great Stories with Financial Services Data and why it will make you a better analyst October 2011 p2 Providing facts can be a big job If you want to explain better about what

Case Study BI Analytics for Dynamics CRM Helps High Concrete Deliver Timely, Accurate Reporting and Analysis High Concrete is part of the High Industries family that provides steel bridge fabrication and

COPYRIGHT 2012 VERTICURL WHITEPAPER: TOP MISTAKES TO AVOID WHEN BUILDING A DEMAND CENTER For many B2B organizations, building a demand center is a no-brainer. Learn how to ensure you re successful by avoiding

So the buzz about marketing automation and what the future holds for marketing in general finally got to you. Now you are ready to start using marketing automation and are not really sure where to start.

TexT analytics Visualizing and analyzing Open-ended TexT data A Survey Analytics Production Open-Ended Comments Discover the rich data you are missing Surveys are often associated with analytics. Almost

White Paper Fitting your Business Intelligence solution to your enterprise Four options, one right decision Executive summary People throughout your organization are called upon daily, if not hourly, to

White paper Fitting Your Business Intelligence Solution to Your Enterprise Four options, one right decision. Table of contents Executive summary... 3 The impediments to good decision making... 3 How the

Ensuring High Availability and Reducing Downtime with Tableau Server May 2012 p2 Business Intelligence Is Becoming Mission-Critical In the past, business intelligence (BI) was often used and managed in

How Effectively Are Companies Using Business Analytics? DecisionPath Consulting Research October 2010 Thought-Leading Consultants in: Business Analytics Business Performance Management Business Intelligence

Lead Scoring: The Smarketer s Guide I m sure your salespeople would agree that not all leads are created equal, and marketers should too. By working together, your two teams can coordinate for better profits,

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 Microsoft Dynamics NAV Maximising value through business insight Business Intelligence White Paper December 2014 CONTENTS Reports were tedious. Earlier it would take days for

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DATA VISUALIZATION INTRODUCTION The importance of communicating information in a visual way that people can truly understand is as old as we are. From cave paintings to the earliest

WHITE PAPER The 7 Deadly Sins of Dashboard Design Overview In the new world of business intelligence (BI), the front end of an executive management platform, or dashboard, is one of several critical elements

5 Tips for Creating Compelling Dashboards The trend toward deeper and deeper analytics to measure business performance has resulted in a slew of tools for creating dashboards. Many of these tools are quite

DATA VISUALISATION An Intrafocus Guide September 2011 Table of Contents What is Data Visualisation?... 2 Where is Data Visualisation Used?... 3 The Market View... 4 What Should You Look For?... 5 The Key

Jabil builds momentum for business analytics Transforming financial analysis with help from IBM and AlignAlytics Overview Business challenge As a global electronics manufacturer and supply chain specialist,

Industry area A full spectrum of analytics you can get yourself 5 reasons to choose IBM for self-service business intelligence Contents Self-service business intelligence that paints a full picture 3 Reason

Better Business Analytics with Powerful Business Intelligence Tools Business Intelligence Defined There are many interpretations of what BI (Business Intelligence) really is and the benefits that it can

Understanding and Selecting Geospatial Analytics Tools A Practical Example COLLABORATIVE WHITEPAPER SERIES Geospatial Business Intelligence (BI) has been in the conversation related to BI now for quite

Creating and Building a Foundation Dashboard March 2013 Logistics Ask questions! Otherwise I m speaking to a black hole! Use the Raise Hand button Make the slideshow or demo bigger Enter questions into